This Christmas, we partnered with Irish charity ALONE to deliver 110 hampers to support older people at home. Here at Webringg, we found partnering with ALONE a perfect fit, using innovative technology WeBringg connects businesses with their consumers in minutes and using this model we connected some of the elderly in society with the ALONE network by delivering Christmas hampers containing various items such as food, cleaning supplies and garments. WeBringg donated just under €1,000 in delivery services for ALONE over a period of four days.

ALONE’s mission is to enable older people to age in the place of their choice and they work to ensure quality of life and well-being. ALONE was founded by Willie Bermingham, a Dublin fireman in 1977. Willie began distributing food, fuel and blankets to older people in need and began a campaign to raise awareness to the media and government, ALONE has since worked to provide services to hundreds of older people through various campaigns for change.

A number of WeBringg employees chose to devote some time to the Christmas charity campaign with ALONE and many delivered packages. Jamie Winters, WeBringg’s Sales and Marketing manager commented on a memorable experience he had, “Meeting a lovely woman called Noreen, who lived at the top of a hill in an apartment building was one of most memorable encounters.” Jamie said, “I called Noreen on her mobile when I arrived but she was out grabbing some groceries and asked me if I would wait around until she came home. She sounded very excited for her hampers so I agreed to wait. It was only my second hamper delivery of the day and with a full van I started to become conscious of time. After 30 minutes of waiting, I heard a few shouts of my name at the bottom of the hill. Poor Noreen had burnt the battery out in her wheelchair rushing back to meet me and asked two young lads to push her home. Noreen was a character and we spent the next half hour in her apartment laughing about the situation and fixing the wheelchair.”.

Many members of staff for WeBringg encouraged family members to partake in the Christmas campaign with each person spending time with the people they delivered to, “It was a humbling experience and really made us all think about the importance of giving back the more the business grows. We have a unique opportunity to use the technology we have built to help the most vulnerable in society and we aim to help Alone as much we can over the coming year.” Jamie said. Robert Simpson, a Driver Manager working with WeBringg in Dublin delivered 8 hampers to people living around Dublin, “A lovely woman opened the door to me, I told her we would give her two boxes of care packages on behalf of ALONE to keep her going over Christmas, she was over the moon she didn’t know what to say, she said she wouldn’t accept it at first. It was a great, she shook my hand and gave me a hug.”

“Webringg is a disrupter in the delivery market particularly for e-commerce deliveries but we’re also trying to disrupt the status quo of corporate responsibility, charity partnerships is something that companies begin to think about in year 3 to 4, whereas we wanted to do it 18 months in.” Alan Hickey, Commercial director of WeBringg stated. “I think Alone is the type of charity whereby everyone has an elderly person in their life so it’s relatable to all our staff, particularly for a company like us where the average age is 24, there was a strange yet direct correlation to their clients and our staff” Alan said.

Supported by volunteers, ALONE offer a range of services including: Befriending, Housing with Support, Support Coordination, Technology, and Campaigns for Change. Alone welcomes volunteers from all backgrounds, If you are interested in joining their team of volunteers you can find out more about the process here. You an also set up a monthly donation or make a once off donation here. Alone receive no government funding for day to day work and rely solely on the generosity from the public to continue their fantastic work.

We are excited to continue to work with and support this amazing organisation!